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Love of God

concepts of worship and devotions towards God

Love of God can mean either love for God or love by God. Love for God (philotheia) is associated with the concepts of worship, and devotions towards God.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. ~ Mark
Saintliness, fear and love of God, and purity of heart are not so deeply rooted within a person as to obviate the necessity of his employing certain devices in order to acquire them. ~ Moshe Chaim Luzzatto

Quotes

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  • God is love and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in his own image . . .. God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion.
  • These two dimensions of life, the natural and the supernatural, allow us to understand better the sense in which the acts that permit a new human being to come into existence, in which a man and a woman give themselves to each other, are a reflection of trinitarian love. "God, who is love and life, has inscribed in man and woman the vocation to share in a special way in his mystery of personal communion and in his work as Creator and Father".
  • Could we with ink the ocean fill,
    And were the heavens of parchment made,
    Were every stalk on earth a quill,
    And every man a scribe by trade;
    To write the love of God above,
    Would drain the ocean dry;
    Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
    Though stretch'd from sky to sky.
    • Rabbi Mayir ben Isaac. Translation of Chaldee Ode, sung in Jewish Synagogues during the service of the first day of the Feast of the Pentecost. Given in the original Chaldee in Notes and Queries, Dec. 31, 1853, p. 648. In Grose's Olio, p. 292, and in Book of Jewish Thoughts, p. 155. Same idea in Chaucer—Balade Warnynge Men to Beware of Deceitful Women. Also in Remedie of Love. See Modern Universal History, p. 430. Note. Miss C. Sinclair—Hill and Valley, p. 35. (Same idea.) Smart given as English translator by one authority. See also Des Knaben Wunderhorn
  • The things that I have here set forth will seem hard to her who loves not Christ. But one who has come to regard all the splendor of the world as off-scourings, and to hold all things under the sun as vain, that he may win Christ; Philippians 3:8 one who has died with his Lord and risen again, and has crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts; he will boldly cry out: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? and again: I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
    • Jerome, Letter 22, p.39; as qtd. in "CHURCH FATHERS: Letter 22 (Jerome)", New Advent, translated by W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 6. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight.
  • Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. The only fitting return that we can make to Him is to give blood for blood; and, as we are redeemed by the blood of Christ, gladly to lay down our lives for our Redeemer. What saint has ever won his crown without first contending for it? Righteous Abel is murdered. Abraham is in danger of losing his wife. And, as I must not enlarge my book unduly, seek for yourself: you will find that all holy men have suffered adversity. Solomon alone lived in luxury and perhaps it was for this reason that he fell. For whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.
    • Jerome, Letter 22, p.39; as qtd. in "CHURCH FATHERS: Letter 22 (Jerome)", New Advent, translated by W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 6. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight.
  • When we realize that God's love for us does not cease in the face of our sin or recoil before our offenses, but becomes even more attentive and generous; when we realize that this love went so far as to cause the passion and death of the Word made flesh who consented to redeem us at the price of his own blood, then we exclaim in gratitude: 'Yes, the Lord is rich in mercy,' and even: 'The Lord is mercy'
    • John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apost. Exhort. Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, Dec. 2, 1984, n. 22.
  • What mean and cruel things men can do for the love of God.
    • W. Somerset Maugham, A Writer's Notebook (1946), "1901", p. 67, first general edition by Country Life Press (1949)
  • Though the beginnings and foundations of saintliness are implanted in every person's heart, if he does not occupy himself with them, he will witness details of saintliness without recognizing them and he will trespass upon them without feeling or perceiving that he is doing so. For sentiments of saintliness, fear and love of God, and purity of heart are not so deeply rooted within a person as to obviate the necessity of his employing certain devices in order to acquire them.
  • If we do not look into and analyze the question of what constitutes true fear of God and what its ramifications are, how will we acquire it and how will we escape wordly vanity which renders our hearts forgetful of it? Will it not be forgotten and go lost even though we recognize its necessity? Love of God, too—if we do not make an effort to implant it in our hearts, utilizing all of the means which direct us towards it, how will it exist within us?
  • One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

    “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

  • God loves all existing things, and loathes nothing which He has made, for He would not have created anything in hatred. We have, moreover, read the declaration: "And You spare all things, because they are Yours, O lover of souls. For Your incorruptible Spirit is in all. And therefore those also who have fallen away for a little time You rebuke, and admonish, reminding them of their sins." (Wisdom 11:26, 12:1-2) How can we assert [as Celsus accuses us Christians of] that "God, leaving the regions of heaven, and the whole world, and despising this great earth, takes up His abode among us only," when we have found that all thoughtful persons must say in their prayers, that "the earth is full of the mercy of the Lord," (Psalm 33:5) and that "the mercy of the Lord is upon all flesh;" (Sirach 18:13) and that God, being good, "makes His sun to arise upon the evil and the good, and sends His rain upon the just and the unjust;" and that He encourages us to a similar course of action, in order that we may become His sons, (Matthew 5:43-48) and teaches us to extend the benefits which we enjoy, so far as in our power, to all men? (Gal 6:10, 1 The 5:15) For He Himself is said to be "the Saviour of all men, especially of them that believe;" (1 Tim 4:10) and His Christ to be "the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 2:2) ... "God commends His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8) ... for the sake of sinners in all parts of the world
  • Knowledge and love of God are ultimately one and the same. There is no difference between pure knowledge and pure love.
    • Ramakrishna, Râmakrishna: His Life and Sayings (1898), p. ix
  • Jesus emphatically rejected the notion that God causes evil things to happen to people either as punishment for sin or as a test of faith. (Matt. 12:22-26, Luke 11:14-23). The Christian belief is that God is love (1 John 4:8) and that divine actions are good (Matt. 19:17). To argue that God either causes or permits rape or incest and consequent pregnancy, or that God causes every hideous anomaly, is to say blasphemous and heretical things about God. Central to the teaching of Jesus was the idea that God is love and goodness. Jesus emphatically denounced and refuted the traditional theology that God caused evil things to happen. He drew a very simple test for deciding: “If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your Children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask?” (Matt 7:11).To some people, it is more acceptable to portray God as cruel than to suggest that God may not be in total control. However, to blame evil on God is to risk confusing the work of Beelzebub with that of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 12:22-36, Luke 11:14-23). Jesus made it plain that an accounting would be made of those who attribute evil to God.
  • What is God? The eternal One Life underneath all the forms of life. What is love? To feel the presence of that One Life deep within yourself and within all creatures. To be it. Therefore, all love is the love of God. Love is not selective, just as the light of the sun is not selective. It does not make one person special. It is not exclusive. Exclusivity is not the love of God but the "love" of ego. However, the intensity with which true love is felt can vary. There may be one person who reflects your love back to you more clearly and more intensely than others, and if that person feels the same toward you, it can be said that you are in a love relationship with him or her.
    • Eckhart Tolle in [A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, p. 98, (2005)
  • A person who understands the law but who is far from the love of God is like a bank official who has the keys for the inside of the building but not the key for the front door.
  • The commandments of God should be followed because of love of God, not because of fear of God.
  • If you love a person without loving God, which is the goodness inside of him, then you plant the seeds for future disappointments and sufferings with this love.
    • Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom, P. Sekirin, trans. (1997), June 15
  • One of the most exquisite pleasures of human love — to serve the loved one without his knowing it — is only possible, as regards the love of God, through atheism.
  • School children and students who love God should never say: “For my part I like mathematics”; “I like French”; “I like Greek.” They should learn to like all these subjects, because all of them develop that faculty of attention which, directed toward God, is the very substance of prayer.

Dialogue

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Your God's love is not unconditional. He does not love us. And He does not love you.
Bishop: You cannot enter the house of God.
Blue Fangs: God is not here. This is an empty box.
Bishop: God is in all His churches.
Blue Fangs: Your God's love is not unconditional. He does not love us. And He does not love you.
Bishop: I have done His bidding. My life's work is in His name.
Blue Fangs: Your life's work makes Him puke.

See also

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